#generationhope
Last week I stumbled upon an article on the Daily Beast entitled “Are Millenials the Screwed Generation?” Pardon the language, but the title is certainly an attention getter. What actually drew me in was seeing the hashtag #generationscrewed come up on my Twitter feed. I followed the tag for a bit, and it ended up getting me pretty fired up for, and at, my fellow millenials.
There’s a lot of sadness out there among people of our generation (millenials = born between 1977 and 1994). The recession has hit us pretty hard, no doubt. Many of us have emerged from college under a staggering load of debt, to a job market that isn’t open. It’s tough out in the world. Really tough. My wife and I count our blessings every day. Really – we do. It has been foundational to our marriage from the word go to pray together and seek God’s will in our marriage. That doesn’t mean we haven’t had difficult times, and having only celebrated three anniversaries we hardly claim to be experts, but we do constantly seek to be on the same page with God when it comes to our family. Can I count that as a reason for our seriously blessed life? You bet. Because we take stock of things constantly, we are constantly aware of how God is moving about us in our new little family. And … this isn’t a stewardship devo, but we are committed to being members-in-full-connection of the Body of Christ. We don’t miss worship, even when we’re on vacation. And we’ve prayerfully budgeted to tithe from our first fruits. Did I mention that we pray? Now that our little boy is here, he’s included every night.
The first job my wife had after we got married was a stinker. I had only been in Louisiana for a year, so I convinced her to join me as I was just starting my career in worship ministry. She had just received her MTS from Perkins, so the prospect of doing anything other than ministry wasn’t appetizing, but she jumped in feet first. It wasn’t working out, but we needed the income. It was a trial for a just married couple-a miserable situation. She had to quit the job, but the whole time we were conscious of the words of Christ in Matthew 7:7 – we asked, we sought, and we even knocked on doors looking for the Lord’s will. Before we knew it, there was work in the community that was the right fit for her and our family. But again, we prayed hard for God’s way to be shown to us which in turn made us open to listening for the right path. It brought us hope to know that the Lord was listening and the blessings came.
I’d like to start a movement. Why can’t we be #generationhope? You aren’t alone. The God above wants to hear your prayers and show you the way of hope.
Question: How can we as the church turn the tide of our generation and become a #generationhope?
See more devotions from Jarrod, and our other Young Adult writers, or find our how you can become a writer yourself at our By Young Adults for Young Adults devotion page.